Jack Conway looked almost grey with tiredness as he shook his head and said, ‘I wish I knew, Detective Easter, I really do.’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

AS NIGHT FELL, Nikki and Joseph sat outside the Intensive Care Unit and waited for news on the unidentified boy.

‘Why don’t you go home and get some sleep, ma’am? I’ll ring you if there’s any change.’

Nikki yawned. ‘Tempting, but I need to be here.’

Joseph stared through the glass section of the door at the small figure on the hospital bed. Tubes snaked everywhere around his thin body, and to Joseph, the child seemed almost overpowered by the bank of monitors and equipment that surrounded him. ‘I don’t think that lad will be talking to anyone for a while.’

‘I agree, but in the absence of a mother or a father …’ She left the sentence unfinished, and he filled in the gaps.

Joseph flopped down on the chair next to hers. ‘I drove through the Estate on the way here, ma’am. There is more Mask Wars graffiti, but not as much as I’d expected, then I saw they were all courtesy of Petey Redfield.’ Joseph stretched and leaned back, his hands interlocked behind his neck. ‘He‘ll probably be out there again tonight, so maybe …’ he sat forward again, ‘… if you are dead set on doing the night watch here, Guv, why don’t I go over to the estate and try to nab the little shit, spray can in hand?’

‘Not a good place to be after dark, Sergeant. Especially on your own.’

Joseph gave her an exasperated look. ‘Believe me, I’ve been in far worse places than that! And on my own is how I like it.’

Nikki said nothing for a moment, but Joseph knew that she would agree with him in the end. There really was little point in both of them wasting time in a hospital waiting area when they needed to be out finding Kerry, and Lisa Jane’s killer. Or, considering that they seemed to be tied up with everything, something concrete on those damned masks.

‘Okay.’ she said finally. ‘But if you get into trouble, don’t bank on the woodentops bailing you out. They are still out searching the marshes for Kerry Anderson. And we’re pretty thin on the ground even for routine stuff, so.…’

‘I’ll go careful, I promise, ma’am. And if I find anything of interest, I’ll come straight back and fill you in. Okay?’

‘Oh, bugger off, Sergeant, I can see you’re itching to meet up with Piet and his paint cans. Just nothing gung ho, you hear?’

Joseph tried to look affronted. ‘Moi?’

‘Yeah, you.’

On his earlier trip, Joseph had earmarked four possible targets for Spray Paint Boy. Each area was moderately hidden from prying eyes, and each offered a nice blank canvas for Petey’s gaudy graphics.